Struggling with debt? Ask a stepchange debt adviser a question

tifo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82143685#Comment_82143685

"asking your mortgage lender to clarify at what point they are able to hand the keys back to you. It may be that they can’t until all debts, including the legal costs have been finalised".

They can do anything they want but in this case they were inflexible. It's not a matter of "can't" but "won't". I had to raise a LOT of money in a day. They said several things such as sending it to auction the 'next day' so that gave us 1 day. Then during discussions with a manager when I was trying to get keys back having paid the full amount due plus a few thousand over the estimated costs, he said it normally goes to auction 'a few weeks' later but I doubt that. Anyway, at that time it was out of the way and even though we both estimated costs at near enough to what they were, he still wound not release the keys until they had all costs from third parties. I had to push them to get these urgently, which he did try.

After they had all costs and totals due, they were friendly. No more tough guys. I could see this in the way they dealt with me.